Greg Bowman Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Did he actually tell you that, or is that your view of what he thought?There's a few on here tonight who could actually do with a bit of NLP knowledge (and I don't mean the shallow version of it used in training seminars; I mean the real thing). +1 NLP isn't therapy or 'training' it is a whole set of ideas, models and structures for working with the world. The reason some people believe it is witchraft is that it is powerful when effectively used and I do mean used (good and bad) because it is not spritual it doesn't have morals or right and wrong. The snake oil salesman are indeed the overweight trainers in grey shoes who have learnt 3 minutes of it and pass it off on an overpriced training course. For those of you who think they can spot it being used it really hasn't been used well. I don't own or run any training courses or companies. But personally found a tool that enabled me to get inside people's heads when they couldn't get inside their own, proftitable, mischevious and fun. As I said it is just a set of tools use them as you wish........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Melchett Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Edit to add MBA tutors are like Life coaches, no better then rip off physic readers imho!! Some are probably OK, but I had a hilarious moment at my MBA graduation ceremony: Her ladyship and I were having lunch in a pub nearby, and one of my tutors, who hadnt recognized me, was at the next table, dressed like Henry VIII and giving it large to some impressionable young ladies about how all his students thought that he was some sort of minor deity and that they all loved him and kept in touch and vice versa. I was there to enjoy the day, so I resisted the temptation to lean across and introduce myself with 'I'm surprised you dont remember or recognize me then, although I did always think you a bit of a prat with a Napoleon complex, some farily offensive views and an overinflated sense of his own importance.' I just quitely shared this view with my wife..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopGun Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Some are probably OK, but I had a hilarious moment at my MBA graduation ceremony: Her ladyship and I were having lunch in a pub nearby, and one of my tutors, who hadnt recognized me, was at the next table, dressed like Henry VIII and giving it large to some impressionable young ladies about how all his students thought that he was some sort of minor deity and that they all loved him and kept in touch and vice versa. I was there to enjoy the day, so I resisted the temptation to lean across and introduce myself with 'I'm surprised you dont remember or recognize me then, although I did always think you a bit of a prat with a Napoleon complex, some farily offensive views and an overinflated sense of his own importance.' I just quitely shared this view with my wife..... They also remind me of cult leaders: "Come, join us, discover yourself (in my image)". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBlewItLastTime Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 You do realise the original article was about how the top business school has turned out some of the most spectacular f*ck-ups of the last 100 years:Andy Hornby (former chief executive of HBOS) John Thain (ex Merrill Lynch) Hank Paulson (Goldman Sachs / US Treasury) Rick Wagoner (GM) Jeffrey Skilling (Enron) George W. Bush (ex US President) As an earlier poster pointed out, MBAs don't bestow any special powers on those that didn't have them before. They may however give the recipient an extra - undeserved - level of confidence; useful for the interview chair, hazardous when in a position of power. Well OK there are a lot of dangerous drivel spouting MBA's out there, probably because to get to the very top you are judged on your ability to deliver crass business soundbites across a packed lecture theatre - known as airtime. A little knowledge of everything presented persuasively is nauseating and dangerous. But the opposite is an economy where people only know their tiny little area and nothing beyond. The MBA debate is a mid-depression navel gaze, do you want to replace Guy Fawkes with an MBA wielding banker effigy in a Porsche - oh lawd you do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumanAction Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 There's a good introductory text called "Introducing NLP" by O'Connor and Seymour. You'll learn as much from that as you would on most of the over-priced training courses. Unfortunately, one effect of all the hype and corporate-interest in NLP has been that people treat it like magic and charge a fortune for flashy courses. In reality, it's a mixture of observation, communication and common sense which is easily learnt and invaluable to the individual. Bandler's 'Frogs into Princes' is one of the best places to start investigating NLP. Tony Robbins Unlimited Power is also a good introduction, if very anecdotal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Injin Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Bandler's 'Frogs into Princes' is one of the best places to start investigating NLP. Tony Robbins Unlimited Power is also a good introduction, if very anecdotal. http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Hypnotic-Te...n/dp/1555520529 Go straight to the source, which is Erickson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fromage Frais Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 MBA is justa course not a state of mind. I have one I enjoyed doing it, it cost quite a but but then I am one of those folks who likes to do somthing in the spare time. This hating is just a bit nieve I went to the school of life crap which the lucky guy with no qualifications extols the virtue of hard work when x10 others with no qualifications are not as rich as him. Playing the stats and getting some qualifications does not damage you infact I have respect for anyone who does something constructive with their time practical or theoretical. From my MBA I was the youngest guy there so for me it was good for the confidence and even if the main benefit was understanding management crapspeak then it was a good benefit. The other benefit was to see that folks from the corporate background are not super people and thus cannot be trusted to run things beter than you can this + hpc has saved me hundreds of thousands. Tarring people is a bit unfair do you expect people to sit on their **** and not take these courses? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumanAction Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Hypnotic-Te...n/dp/1555520529Go straight to the source, which is Erickson. Hmm I havent read that but I have read 'Trance-formations' by Bandler & Grinder and that is surely a seminal work on hypnosis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Injin Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Hmm I havent read that but I have read 'Trance-formations' by Bandler & Grinder and that is surely a seminal work on hypnosis. Erickson is the guy they copied to learn hypnosis. The structure of magic is also as good as the Erickson stuff, more technical than tranceformations or the stuff with St. Claire. Some of it is scary, scary shit. But if you want to be free of illusions, the tools of the manipulators are a good place to start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John51 Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Not sure whether you're joking or not(!) - hard to tell on forums sometimes - but assuming that you're not, what conclusion are you asking us to draw from this statement? No, not a joke. I was replying to your post: I actually had a discussion with someone the other day in which they confidently stated that they would more trust an (ilegally operating) unqualified plumber to connect their gas boiler than someone with a CORGI certificate because 'those people don't know anything'. When you think about it, this really is a bizarre and illogical way of looking at the world! Written the way it is, we could assume that the person in question will trust anyone unqualified over someone with quals but in practice it isn't so. What happens is that some people get ripped by qualified tradesmen but receive good value from the local handyman. So they trust their local handyman more than strangers with certificates. There is a large black economy in such work. The guy I worked for would brick it when taking on a job outside his skill sets, we'd be talking about nothing else for the week prior. He'd check and double check everything and go back a few weeks later to make sure everything was in order. His customers trusted him not to stuff up and he never did. Even with his lower asking rates I thought a lot of the work wasn't cost effective for the customer. The LL here had new c/h installed and a cracking father and son team (both CORGI registered) had it fitted in a morning. It would have taken the handyman and me 2 days. The conclusion I was hoping you'd draw is that certificates only indicate that the holder is believed to be capable of doing work to a predefined standard, it is not a guarantee that they will meet those standards. Hence the situation where some people discount the qualification until they've had proof that the person does a good job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubuntu Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Hypnotic-Te...n/dp/1555520529Go straight to the source, which is Erickson. I have that book, bought it about 5 years ago and indeed it is very detailed & technically illuminating, still haven't managed to finish reading it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orsino Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 MBAs teach you the skills of corporate bull$h1t. If you embrace it then a promising career surrounded by bull$h!tters awaits you. If you reject it then you are all but unemployable by most corporations because your insight and knowledge is a threat to their entire culture. Most MBA courses are ideally suited to fools and charlatans but are like career kryptonite to cynics, sages and idealists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nomadd Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Did he actually tell you that, or is that your view of what he thought? Nope, he actually told me and the whole team that we were "nothings" without an MBA. As he was the biggest plonker on the whole project, I can't say we were too gutted. Nomadd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smith Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Nope, he actually told me and the whole team that we were "nothings" without an MBA. As he was the biggest plonker on the whole project, I can't say we were too gutted. Nomadd Ha ha did he really? Fantastic. It's great when people make it so easy for you to realise what a d**k they are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chi Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Tony Robbins Unlimited Power is also a good introduction, if very anecdotal. Thanks for the input and thanks to everyone for the links and points of view regarding this. Thanks injin for that link about the "magic book". Reading the first page was uncanny. I met someone a while ago whose communication would absolutely fit this description, however they were not using these techniques in any kind of therapeutic context. You are aware they are attempting to manipulate you, you are just not sure how they are doing it! It doesnt make me angry, as I said, it takes two to be conned. It would be great to know exactly how this sh!t works. Actually, it was this Tony Robbins book I had a read through a while ago. The problem that I've had with reading this and other NLP books is that they start off with the premise "every human being sees the world through primarily one of the five senses". Some are primarily visual, some are tactile, etc. Even intuitively this is boorlocks, on some days you may feel very tactile and physical, on others more visually stimulated. This even changes hour to hour for chrissakes! Most people are a mix of all these things. Therefore I think the initial premise is flawed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wigler Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 The problem that I've had with reading this and other NLP books is that they start off with the premise "every human being sees the world through primarily one of the five senses". Some are primarily visual, some are tactile, etc. Even intuitively this is boorlocks, on some days you may feel very tactile and physical, on others more visually stimulated. This even changes hour to hour for chrissakes! Most people are a mix of all these things. Therefore I think the initial premise is flawed. See this is an example of NLP being watered down. Pattern recognition (eye access cues, sense preference) is something that is done in real time. You can not generalise from what someone does in one context to another, let alone from one person to another. It's not your fault that you've gotten this impression as there are hundreds of crap 'Introduction to NLP books' that you can get for a tenner and 99% of them miss the point. Don't feel bad, 99% of people that say they are interested in NLP seem to miss the point. The mistake many people make about NLP is that they think that NLP = Protocols, Techniques, Beliefs etc. NLP is noticing human behaviour and cognition, modelling it, changing it. I think Bandler said it best: 'NLP is an attitude an methodology that leaves behind it a trail of techniques' Forget all the 'Learn NLP in 7 days' Read the books by Joseph O'Connor, Bandler, Grinder, Milton Erickson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chi Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 See this is an example of NLP being watered down. Pattern recognition (eye access cues, sense preference) is something thatis done in real time. You can not generalise from what someone does in one context to another, let alone from one person to another. It's not your fault that you've gotten this impression as there are hundreds of crap 'Introduction to NLP books' that you can get for a tenner and 99% of them miss the point. Don't feel bad, 99% of people that say they are interested in NLP seem to miss the point. The mistake many people make about NLP is that they think that NLP = Protocols, Techniques, Beliefs etc. This is exactly what I'm saying, but most books seem to start from this premise, which just turns me off them completely. I am not denying that Milton made a huge breakthroughs into psychotherapy with his pioneering techniques. Nobody likes to admit that their choices are influenced by TV commercials, yet companies spend millions on campaigns. It must work somehow, and it's interesting to find out why. Don't worry, I won't feel bad just cos something is craply explained and commercially diluted down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Injin Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Banking uses hypnosis, which is why it's so hard to explain to people who have fallen for it. The rather excellent Derren Brown - http://www.guba.com/watch/3000082504 http://www.wisebread.com/mind-control-guru...sheets-of-paper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zilly Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 (edited) MBAs teach you the skills of corporate bull$h1t. If you embrace it then a promising career surrounded by bull$h!tters awaits you. If you reject it then you are all but unemployable by most corporations because your insight and knowledge is a threat to their entire culture. Most MBA courses are ideally suited to fools and charlatans but are like career kryptonite to cynics, sages and idealists. That's pretty much my take on them too! Bu11shit baffles brains as we used to say. Very true. The ability to give a slick presentation appears to transcend all. Doesn't matter about content, only delivery. Some of the BS spoken during the Dot Com boom was unbelievable but it was spoken by people with outsize egos, large braces, nice ties and great 'communication skills' so it was swallowed hook, line and sinker. Those people subsequently moved on into real estate I would imagine. In fact in a couple of instances - I know they did. Edited February 17, 2009 by zilly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ride_on Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I don't think there is anything wrong with MBAs themselves in addition to a valuable qualification, but I've more of a problem with some of the people that do them. As someone already mentioned TQM, Kaisen, 6 Sigma are similarly bedded. They are tools you can use to achieve an end, if you just want to say you have the tool because someone will reward you for it (such as a customer or employer), its not very useful to society in general. I do agree the content is very shallow and just like other business degrees is only suitable (on its own) for running very simple businesses like clothes retail. In an Electronics company I worked in a number of managers, including myself, were selected for an expensive MBA (lots of jollies). After a few years the foreign management got rather upset that all it had done was increase costs as most of what they did was to do with employee happiness by making relaxing rooms, the company already had strong cost reduction culture. I didn't think it made any difference to what I did as the course just repeated alot of the conclusions I had already come to, I hadn't changed my standard line that for every Engineer I had I could reduce the annual costs by £500K, the company still didn't want to employ more Engineers. The Engineers however did say that I made more meetings. On the whole I thought it was worth doing, it gave me a bit more confidence. I do see that later smaller companies I have worked for have nothing in the way of strategy or mission, and violate basic rules like mixing differentiation and cost leader ship, I would actually be happier if the leaders had studied just a short business course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dangerous Woman Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 That's pretty much my take on them too!Bu11shit baffles brains as we used to say. Very true. The ability to give a slick presentation appears to transcend all. Doesn't matter about content, only delivery. Some of the BS spoken during the Dot Com boom was unbelievable but it was spoken by people with outsize egos, large braces, nice ties and great 'communication skills' so it was swallowed hook, line and sinker. Those people subsequently moved on into real estate I would imagine. In fact in a couple of instances - I know they did. I know of one "dotcom entrepreneur" who went bust and then set up a "buy to let empire worth £10,000,000" I wonder how he is doing now? He seems to go bust all the time and then set up new companies straight away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orsino Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I know of one "dotcom entrepreneur" who went bust and then set up a "buy to let empire worth £10,000,000" I wonder how he is doing now? He seems to go bust all the time and then set up new companies straight away. One 'dotcom entrepreneur' I know went into banking and fund management. He'd lost £15 million of investors' money by the end of the dotcom crash in 2001 (not bad for someone still in their 20s). I wonder how much he's lost since then. I should keep an eye on him to see where the next bubble and crash will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Skywalker Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Sorry to burst your bubble but the truth is its not about the MBA its about the person behind it. On my course (top 5 school worldwide) there were some who were there to get the qualification and some who were there to learn - most didn't understand what was being put in front of them and learnt by wrote - others used it as a chance to see things from a different perspective.Those who need to go and get an MBA shouldn't be allowed to get one - I was selected to go and ( I feel at least) a much better person for it so thanks to my employer and £18,000 pounds ( ten years ago ) I feel good about life. Sleep tight SB Top Five School? And they graduated you who learned by wrote above those who learned by rote? I don't think so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikhail Liebenstein Posted February 17, 2009 Author Share Posted February 17, 2009 (edited) I don't think there is anything wrong with MBAs themselves in addition to a valuable qualification, but I've more of a problem with some of the people that do them. As someone already mentioned TQM, Kaisen, 6 Sigma are similarly bedded. They are tools you can use to achieve an end, if you just want to say you have the tool because someone will reward you for it (such as a customer or employer), its not very useful to society in general. I would add that TQM, Kaisen, 6 Sigma are actually considerably more useful than an MBA. Unfortunately they are mainly manufacturing focused (except for some of the service spin off versions) and so probably not as useful in the UK as they might be in Germany or Japan. Edited February 17, 2009 by mikelivingstone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
contractor Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I would add that TQM, Kaisen, 6 Sigma are actually considerably more useful than an MBA. Unfortunately they are mainly manufacturing focused (except for some of the service spin off versions) and so probably not as useful in the UK as they might be in Germany or Japan. My MBA is actually MBA (Technology Management) hence me mentioning those subjects as they are covered in the OU course of the same name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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